WASHINGTON — The Air Force is barring its personnel from using work computers to view the Web sites of The New York Times and more than 25 other news organizations and blogs that have posted secret cables obtained by WikiLeaks, Air Force officials said Tuesday.

How ridiculous. If you are an American: Your tax dollars foolishly at work. The Office of Management and Budget goaded the USAF and other US government agencies into doing this. How much was wasted on this pointless exercise?

I hate mindless IT rules that do not apply to a situation and just get in the way of getting work done. But IT people are chosen for their willingness to enforce rules which are irrelevant to a situation. So is the case with the USAF.

Computer network specialists within the Air Force Space Command last week followed longstanding procedures to keep classified information off unclassified computer systems.

Of course this web site blocking will just cut off useful sources of news of what is going on in the world. It is pointless. The Chinese and Russians and other world powers will read thru every detail of the leaked cables. Meanwhile the USAF enlisted personnel and civilians can just read at home what they can't read at work. The only usefulness of blocking these sites is that government employees will have fewer ways to distract themselves from work. But remaining distractions on other web sites are so huge in number that this exercise won't even improve productivity.

She has been introduced to the country through a dribble of unearthed video footage of her comments on Christian morality. In one widely circulated clip from a 1996 MTV documentary, she decried masturbation on religious grounds. In another previously unreleased clip from 1999, she laughingly told a television audience that she'd once "dabbled into witchcraft" and unknowingly had a picnic on what she called a Satanic altar.

"I dabbled into witchcraft -- I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. ... I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I'm not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do. . . . "

"One of my first dates with a witch was on a Satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that. ... We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a Satanic altar."

Here's what I'm thinking: Even though she didn't know she was picnicking on a Satanic altar, by eating food (sex too?) on that altar she became a tool for Satan and remains one to this day. Yes, that's it. Why this means the people in Delaware should elect her: Once she's in the Senate we can watch her every move as a way to figure out what Satan really wants. If she allies with Barack Obama that'll be the proof we need that Barack is really a Satanist, not a Muslim. If she opposes Barack then that's a lot more tricky to figure out.

But I could be unfair here. Andrew Stuttaford uses a picture to link Christine to Willow the witch from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Could it be that Christine is really a good witch and she's angling to get into the Senate because a Vampire Coven has formed near the top of the US government? Was she on that Satanic altar really in order to fight the forces of evil? Did she save civilization that night? Do we all owe her our lives? Is she really a Slayer?

Also, and I think this is important: Christine opposes masturbation. She probably knows that masturbation depletes magic powers and she's calling out to all the good witches to build up their powers and rally to her lead when she takes on the conspirators who are trying to open the Hellmouth underneath Washington DC. This is just like Sunnyvale.

Some people think that O'Donnell isn't competent to serve as Senator from Delaware. But Joe Biden served in that role for many years. I think the bar for that job is pretty low.

Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of Japan's Prime Minister-elect, Yukio Hatoyama, is a lifestyle guru, a macrobiotics enthusiast, an author of cookery books, a retired actress, a divorcee, and a fearless clothes horse for garments of her own creation, including a skirt made from Hawaiian coffee sacks. But there is more, much more. She has travelled to the planet Venus. And she was once abducted by aliens.

Now, is that cool or what?

Her husband is a real alpha who boasts going after his now wife while she was still married to her previous husband.

It was there, while working in a Japanese restaurant in San Francisco, that she met Yukio, then a graduate student at Stanford University. Miyuki was still married to her first husband. "The average man chooses his mate from among unmarried women," Mr Hatoyama boasted years later. "I chose mine from among all women."

I'm already bored by the Obamas. I thought they'd offer entertainment value even as they implemented policies I think are harmful to my interests and those of most Americans. He's humorless (in addition to being a politically correct persecutor). She's uninteresting to anyone with a brain. We need some more interesting politicians to pay attention to.

But in an interview Monday with a Scranton television station, WNEP, Biden was explaining how the Obama tax policy would no longer give tax breaks to the “very very wealthy” and appeared to set the bar lower.

“What we’re saying is that $87 billion tax break doesn’t need to go to people making an average of $1.4 million. It should go like it used to. It should go to middle class people — people making under $150,000 a year,” he said.

Those comments fit into the Republican narrative aimed at voters who, are promised a tax break under the Obama plan. They argue that in order to pay for his spending initiatives, he’ll wind up taxing a lot more people than he says, a charge the Obama campaign disputes.

You might have thought you needed to make a half million or even a million a year to be upper class. After decades of inflation I would think even a million just isn't that much. But Joe Biden, supporter of the working class, wants to give us a more achievable goal to shoot for. $150k for entry into the upper class becomes a possible goal for a large fraction of the population. Work 2 jobs. Get your spouse to work 2 jobs. You too can enter the upper class.

Under Obama's plan, the marginal federal income tax rate for those with the highest incomes would go back to 39.6 percent from 35 percent, perhaps earlier than already scheduled under the Bush tax-cut legislation for the end of 2010. Also, Obama would impose a smaller payroll tax, perhaps 2 to 4 percent but not yet specified by the Obama campaign, on income above $200,000 and $250,000. So the marginal federal tax rate – the rate on the last dollar earned – could climb as high as perhaps 43 percent.

Mind you, if you live in a state with a high state income tax then your marginal income tax rate could surpass 50%. That is just plain wrong. You are also going to pay sales taxes and assorted fee taxes on your utilities as well as property taxes and still other taxes.